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President Biden has called for renewing enhanced child tax credit payments for parents as part of the family policies in his budget unveiled this week.
But getting Congress to sign off on the terms may not be easy.

Parents and children participate in a demonstration organized by the ParentsTogether Foundation in support of the child tax credit portion of the Build Back Better bill outside of the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 13, 2021.
Sarah Silbiger | Bloomberg | Getty Images

President Joe Biden’s proposed budget for fiscal 2024 includes a host of proposals aimed at helping families.
That includes one key proposal — the reinstatement of the enhanced child tax credit that temporarily gave qualifying parents up to $3,600 per child for 2021 through the American Rescue Plan.

Biden’s plan calls for raising the current maximum child credit from $2,000 per child to $3,600 per child under age 6 or to $3,000 per child ages 6 and up.
The budget also calls for permanently making the child tax credit fully refundable, which means people would still be eligible even if their tax liability was less than the credit amount.
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The enhanced child tax credit — including monthly payments of up to $300 per child — helped to cut poverty in half, the “lowest level in all of American history,” Biden said in a speech on the budget on Thursday.
“We were really pleased to see that the White House is redoubling its efforts to support this direct cash payment program,” said Anna Aurilio, federal campaign director at advocacy organization Economic Security Project Action.

The move to expand the credit would be accompanied by other policy proposals in the president’s budget aimed at helping both individuals and families.
The earned income tax credit would be permanently expanded for childless workers, with the goal of keeping low-paid workers out of poverty.

The plan calls for 12 weeks paid family and medical leave, as well as seven paid sick days for all workers. It also aims to expand access to affordable childcare and free preschool. The budget also calls for expanding Medicaid home and community-based services, which would allow older and disabled individuals to stay at home, providing relief for family caregivers and home care workers.
“It’s going to help millions of parents go to work, knowing their children are being taken care of,” Biden said of the budget on Thursday.
Admittedly, the proposals — including the push to renew the expanded tax credit — may be difficult to get through Congress.

Biden aims to up benefits, slash the deficit

With the budget, Biden is aiming to cut deficits by almost $3 trillion over 10 years.
An analysis by the Tax Foundation found the expanding the child tax credit for three years, creating a monthly payment option and making it permanently fully refundable would cost more than $429 billion over 10 years. The earned income tax credit expansion for workers without qualifying children would cost about $156 billion.
However, other research suggests the government spending may have positive effects.
For every $1 spent on the child tax credit would result in $10 in benefits to society, according to Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy.

The child tax credit just wasn’t big enough to have an impact on inflation, but it was big enough to help families meet rising costs.

Anna Aurilio
federal campaign director at advocacy organization Economic Security Project Action

“People support it,” Aurilio said. “It’s wildly popular, especially right now.”
That is as inflation has pushed prices for everyday items higher than it has in decades.
While some argue stimulus efforts like an enhanced child tax credit would fuel inflation, other experts say that is not true.
“The child tax credit just wasn’t big enough to have an impact on inflation, but it was big enough to help families meet rising costs,” Aurilio said.
In an open letter to Congressional leaders in December, more than 200 economists argued renewing the 2021 child tax credit would help low- and middle-income families cope with rising costs and help promote better economic health.

“Extending the expanded child tax credit is one of the easiest, most effective and direct tools currently at our disposal to help families deal with the impact of inflation on family budgets,” they wrote.
But getting a new policy passed won’t be easy, Aurilio said. “K Street is lobbying hard to revive tax breaks for corporations.”
“We’ve been saying all along that that shouldn’t happen unless Congress also provides relief to families and workers by expanding the CTC and EITC,” she said.
While some Democratic leaders have championed the policy, other leaders, like Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, have led efforts for a more streamlined universal child benefit.
“The biggest challenge I think for Republicans or Democrats will be how you’re going to pay for it,” Romney said in an interview last year. “And my own view is that one, by economizing on how large the program is.”
Romney also called for potentially repurposing funds from other benefits, like the child portion of the earned income tax credit.

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A SIMPLE IRA is generally easier and less expensive to operate than a 401(k) plan, the IRS said.
It’s a good alternative for employers who want to offer a retirement plan in today’s hot job market.
There are trade-offs like lower annual contribution limits.

Visualspace | E+ | Getty Images

Small business owners today may feel they’re getting pulled in two directions: stuck between wanting to offer a retirement benefit to their workers but feeling unable to afford costs associated with a 401(k) plan.
But entrepreneurs scared by the affordability of maintaining a 401(k) plan can instead consider an alternative workplace retirement plan known as a SIMPLE IRA, said Marguerita Cheng, a certified financial planner based in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

The plans — formally known as a Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees — don’t carry the startup and operating costs of a “conventional” retirement plan, according to the IRS.

Employers are more pressured these days to offer a retirement benefit to stay competitive in a hot labor market, Cheng said. Job openings have been historically high, and turnover has been elevated.
“If you have a younger workforce or you have no [retirement] plan, it’s a great way to start offering one,” said Cheng, CEO at Blue Ocean Global Wealth and a member of CNBC’s Advisor Council.
SIMPLE IRAs are also “a great stepping stone” to a 401(k) in the future, if an employer wants to make their offering more “robust,” she said.

Easy to operate, lower contribution limits

SIMPLE IRAs are generally available to any small business with 100 or fewer employees. The business cannot have any other retirement plan.

The plans require an employer contribution — similar to a 401(k) match — each year. The amount depends on a formula elected by the employer but won’t exceed 3% of a worker’s annual compensation.
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SIMPLE IRAs are “easy and inexpensive to operate,” and don’t carry certain requirements like the discrimination testing that 401(k) plans generally do, according to the IRS. Employers can also get a tax deduction for their contributions.
In the case of a SIMPLE IRA, employees elect to contribute money — it’s not mandatory for them to save. However, the plans carry lower annual contribution limits relative to 401(k) plans: up to $15,500 compared to $22,500, respectively, in 2023.
Each plan allows workers age 50 and older to contribute extra money via “catch-up” contributions (an additional $3,500 in a SIMPLE IRA and another $7,500 in a 401(k) plan). More

The average new-car price in February was $45,296, compared with an MSRP of $41,637, a new study shows.
An estimated 31% of new vehicles were sold above MSRP last month.
Here are some tips for consumers to avoid paying a premium for their new car.

If you’re in the market for a new car, be prepared for the possibility of paying more than sticker price.
The average new-car price in February was $45,296, compared with an MSRP of $41,637, according to the iSeeCars report. An estimated 31% of new vehicles were sold above MSRP last month, according to a joint forecast from J.D. Power and LMC Automotive. That’s down from a high of 48% last July.

On average, new autos are priced 8.8% above the manufacturer’s suggested retail price, or MSRP, according to new research from iSeeCars.com. While that’s down from a peak of 10.2% in mid-2022, the 10 models with the biggest difference are all at least an average of 20% above MSRP.
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“The manufacturers keep raising their prices and then the dealers raise them again,” said Karl Brauer, executive analyst at iSeeCars.
“The difference between dealer pricing and MSRP should continue to fall as the supply chain improves, though getting back to MSRP for most models may not happen this year,” Bauer said.

The biggest premiums paid are for luxury vehicles

As for which cars are priced the most above MSRP: Most of them are luxury models, according to the iSeeCars study.

Coming in first for the highest premium is the Genesis GV70, whose average price of $56,476 is 27.5% above an MSRP of $44,299.

That’s followed by the Jeep Wrangler, which is priced 23.9% above MSRP ($44,396 versus $35,827). The Jeep Wrangler Unlimited is the only other non-luxury vehicle in the top 10, with its price of $55,347 being 21.9% above an MSRP of $45,386.
Of course, not all cars come with a huge price premium.
For instance, the Chevrolet Silverado 1500 comes with an average price of $50,116, which is 1.9% below an MSRP of $51,103. Or, the Malibu — also a Chevrolet — is priced at $27,887, just 1.1% above the MSRP of $27,597.

‘Leverage patience’ to find a deal

In addition to rising prices for new cars, interest rates have been climbing steadily over the last year, which makes the cost of financing a car more expensive.
The average interest rate on a new-car loan is 6.3% for 60 months (five years), according to Statista. That’s up from about 4% a year ago. Monthly payments average about $722, according to the J.D. Power and LMC Automotive/LMC report. That’s $59 higher than a year ago.
While these prices might seem prohibitive, buyers who take some time to shop around may be able to find a car whose price is more palatable.

“If you have the time to look for deals, or go further away than your local dealership, you may be able to find a deal,” said Joseph Yoon, consumer insights analyst at Edmunds.
“It’s when you need a car right away that you run into problems because you can’t leverage patience,” Yoon said.
Additionally, it’s worth considering more than one model.
“If you can identify multiple models that will serve your needs, you will be in a much better position than if you’re fixated on a specific make, model, color and option package,” Brauer said.
“It’s easy to fall in love with a single vehicle, but most consumers, if they are being honest, understand that more than one model will cover their car needs,” he added.

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President Joe Biden called for “protecting and strengthening” Social Security with the introduction of his fiscal 2024 budget Thursday.
The plan is light on details for long-term fixes to Social Security. But it does call for increased funding to help alleviate long waits for services.

U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks about his budget for fiscal year 2024 at the Finishing Trades Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 9, 2023.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

Days after introducing a new plan to shore up Medicare, President Joe Biden called for “protecting and strengthening” Social Security with the introduction of his fiscal 2024 budget on Thursday.
With the budget, the president reaffirmed his intentions to reject any proposed cuts to Social Security or Medicare. It also confirmed he plans to work with Congress to strengthen the programs.

His statement stopped short, however, of proposing a specific plan to restore Social Security’s trust funds.
Lawmakers are discussing ways to shore up the program, which may not be able to pay full benefits as soon as 2033, according to a recent analysis from the Congressional Budget Office.
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Among the options on the table are raising the full retirement age from 67 to 70. Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., have also led a plan that would make income over $250,000 subject to Social Security taxes.
However, Biden’s budget reaffirms his intentions that “no one earning less than $400,000 per year will pay a penny in new taxes.”

At the same time, the budget also indicates that the administration “looks forward to working with Congress to responsibly strengthen Social Security by ensuring high-income individuals pay their fair share.”
Biden has proposed raising Medicare taxes to 5%, from 3.8%, for both earned and unearned income over $400,000. The changes are aimed at shoring up Medicare’s funds for at least 25 years.

“We were very happy with the way that President Biden talked about Social Security and Medicare and cuts being off the table,” said Dan Adcock, director of government relations and policy at the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.
While Biden’s budget did not include specific plans for Social Security, his stance suggesting he will make the wealthy pay their fair share to help shore up the program goes further than a lot of his predecessors have, Adcock noted.
Biden had previously suggested raising the limit on the Social Security payroll taxes during his campaign, but “this is the first time while president he specifically laid down that marker,” Adcock said.
However, Maya MacGuineas, president of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said in a statement that the lack of a plan to address Social Security’s trust fund shortfall is a “glaring omission” in the president’s budget.

We were very happy with the way that President Biden talked about Social Security and Medicare and cuts being off the table.

Dan Adcock
director of government relations and policy at the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare

“The Social Security trust fund is projected to be insolvent within the next dozen years, and delaying action puts those who depend on the program the most at risk,” MacGuineas said.
Biden’s budget also calls for other changes, including enhanced funding for the Social Security Administration and a new paid family and medical leave program that would be administered by the agency.

10% increase in funding to improve services

Biden is requesting a 10% boost — a $1.4 billion increase — to the Social Security Administration’s operating budget over the amount enacted in 2023. The funding would total $15.5 billion.
The funds would be used to improve customer service at Social Security’s field offices, after long in-person waits and 800-number hold times have become increasingly common. The funds would help improve 800-number access and online services.
The funds would also be used for state disability determination services and teleservice centers.

The budget also calls for adding staff to help reduce wait times and increase processing of disability claims, simplifying the Supplemental Security Income application process and increasing outreach.
The extra funds “would help a lot,” Adcock said.
“It would help them to go beyond treading water in terms of improving their customer service, particularly the huge backlog they have in Social Security disability claims,” he added.

New paid family leave program would debut

Biden also renewed a push for a national paid family and medical leave program with the budget proposal.
The program would provide partial wage replacement for up to 12 weeks to care for a new child, a loved one or for personal medical issues.
Democrats recently pushed for an expanded federal paid leave policy on the 30th anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act, which allows for unpaid leave for qualifying employees.
“There are still a lot of problems that can’t be solved without some form of paid leave,” former President Bill Clinton said in February at a White House event.
However, it remains to be seen how the Social Security Administration may handle the added responsibility.
“We certainly support paid family leave,” Adcock said.
However, because the agency’s operating budget is subject to the appropriations process, it would be difficult to ensure the needed funding would continuously be available.
“They would not have a way of guaranteeing that the Social Security Administration would get the resources they would need for that administrative burden,” Adcock said.

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If women invested at the same rate as men, there would be an additional $3.22 trillion in global assets under management, according to BNY Mellon.
Women are less likely to invest in an employer-sponsored plan or a brokerage account, Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies found.
Closing the wage gap and making changes within the financial community are part of the solution, experts said.

Oscar Wong | Moment | Getty Images

Women don’t invest in the market at the same rate as men, and the reasons for this are more nuanced than lower earnings power.
Experts point to factors such as how women are perceived and treated by the investment community, among other hurdles for this gender investment gap.

The investing disparity is stark: If women invested at the same rate as men, there would be at least an additional $3.22 trillion in assets under management from private individuals, a report from BNY Mellon Investment Management found. The firm’s global survey, fielded in 2021, included 8,000 men and women across 16 markets. BNY Mellon also interviewed 100 global asset managers with $60 trillion in assets under management.
When it comes to saving for retirement, American women are less likely to invest in an employer-sponsored plan or a brokerage account, according to the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies. The 22nd annual survey of workers, released in November 2022, was conducted within the U.S. by the Harris Poll between Oct. 28 and Dec. 10, 2021, among a nationally representative sample of 5,493 workers.

The result is that women, who on average live longer than men, are less likely to be prepared to retire when they want. Some 53% of women feel financially comfortable about retiring at their target date, compared with 66% of men, a survey from BMO found. The survey, conducted by Ipsos from Jan. 16 to Feb. 12, polled a sample of 3,401 U.S. adults.

Hurdles to overcome

Women face a number of barriers when it comes to investing. One is that the investment industry isn’t engaging women to the same degree as men, BNY Mellon’s research found.
According to the global survey, 1 in 10 women feel they don’t fully understand investing and only about 28% feel confident about investing some of their money. In the U.S., some 41% of women feel confident.

Yet 86% of asset managers surveyed said they are targeting a male customer, the survey found.
In fact, most U.S. financial advisors are male — just 35% were women in 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Then there is the high hurdle of the disposable income women think they need to have before they invest. On average, women around the world believe they need $4,092 a month before they would consider investing any of it, BNY Mellon found. In the U.S., women, on average, think they need over $6,000 a month — or just over $72,000 per year.
On top of that, more than a quarter of the women surveyed described their financial health as poor or very poor, said Stephanie Pierce, CEO of Dreyfus, Mellon & Exchange-Traded Funds at BNY Mellon Investment Management.
“If women don’t think they have great financial health and they have this very high [disposable income] hurdle, that’s a barrier that is really going to stop people from entering the financial markets,” she said.
Lastly, 45% of the women surveyed by BNY Mellon said investing money in the stock market, through an individual security or a fund, is too risky.

The income divide

However, a Morningstar survey found the gender investing gap simply comes down to the fact that women statistically earn less money than men. The firm surveyed 907 U.S. residents, including 437 females, last year.
“Once you control for income, many of those differences between men and women and investing behaviors kind of disappear. So they either become no longer statistically significant, or they’re not practically significant,” explained Samantha Lamas, a behavioral researcher at Morningstar.
In other words, when researchers compared the investment behaviors of men and women by income bracket, they found they saved and invested similarly.
“The problem was that men just made up a lot of that higher income level bracket,” Lamas said.
In fact, the gender pay gap hasn’t moved much in the past 20 years. Women, on average, earned 82 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2022, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of median hourly earnings of both full- and part-time workers. In 2002, women made 80% of what men earned.

Yet, financial advisors still perceive women differently than men, Lamas said.
“Female investors have in the past reported that advisors assume that they have a low risk tolerance and are interested in sustainable funds, as soon as they walk in the door,” she said. “That’s a generalization that I think oversimplifies the situation. The truth is, it’s much more nuanced.”
For instance, Morningstar has found that interest in ESG — or environmental, social and corporate governance — investing was pretty widespread, with gender and age not really a factor.
However, BNY Mellon’s global survey found more than half of women would invest, or invest more, if the impact of their investment aligned with their personal values. They would also invest if the investment fund had a clear goal or purpose for good.
The firm calculated that of the $3.22 trillion that would enter the market if women invested at the same rate as men, $1.87 trillion would flow into impact investments benefiting people and the environment.

Closing the gap

Luis Alvarez | Digitalvision | Getty Images

To get more women investing, a more inclusive financial community needs to be built, experts said.
“We need more women financial advisors. That is one of the easiest ways to close the gap,” said Beata Kirr, co-head of investment strategies at Bernstein Private Wealth Management and host of the firm’s “Women & Wealth” podcast.
In fact, nearly three-quarters of the asset managers in BNY Mellon’s global survey said they believe the investment industry would be able to attract more women investors if the industry had more female fund managers.
Male advisors also need to understand that their own income and economic success can be hurt if they effectively ignore women, Kirr said. More women are coming into wealth, whether it is through founding businesses, climbing the corporate ladder or an inheritance, she noted.
“One fact is very clear. Women outlive men,” Kirr said. The average life expectancy for women is 79 years, compared with 72 years for men, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In fact, by 2030, women are expected to control much of the $30 trillion in financial assets that baby boomers possess, according to McKinsey & Company. The firm’s 2020 report said it is “a potential wealth transfer of such magnitude that it approaches the annual GDP of the United States.”
Then there is the financial jargon that professionals tend to use. Some 31% of female consumers in the BNY Mellon survey said that overly complicated language, which can be unclear or confusing, dissuades them from investing or investing more than they currently do.
“You see language like asymmetrical risk/reward, risk-adjusted returns, alpha generation, right? Relative outperformance, tracking error, dispersion, downside protection. We use these words to describe really simple things in very complex ways,” Pierce said. “It’s not helpful, and it can put off people that don’t understand it, women included.”
The investment community should also be providing more opportunities that interest women, she added, pointing to the BNY Mellon global survey’s findings that more than half of the women are interested in impact investing.
“We do believe that a part of the call to action is to deliver solutions that meet the need for women who want to have a financial return and social impact with our money, or a socially responsible investment,” Pierce said.
To that end, BNY Mellon recently filed to launch the BNY Mellon Women’s Empowerment ETF, which will invest in companies that demonstrate gender equitable practices and/or offer products that support women’s day-to-day needs.
For Morningstar’s Lamas, the solution to eliminating the gender investing disparity is to close the gender pay gap.
“That means that we need these structural changes. To make an impact here, we need to get women to get paid more,” she said. More

Companies across the U.S. are dealing with a shortage of workers and a shortage of child care.
The U.S. could lose about $290 billion a year in GDP in 2030 and beyond if the number of paid caregivers doesn’t increase and employees leave the workforce for care duties, one estimate said.
The U.S. Department of Commerce is encouraging the semiconductor industry to offer more affordable care options for workers as a way to increase women’s participation in the workforce.

Sinem Buber is a labor economist at ZipRecruiter. She’s reviewed the data on how lack of affordable care options is affecting the U.S. labor force. She’s seen 1.2 million fewer women show up in the workforce data since the pandemic started, in part due to child-care issues.
And as the mother of two boys, now ages 4 and 6, she’s also lived it firsthand, especially when her children, as well as those of her colleagues, were sick this winter. 

“I had to work during the night, [which is] when my other colleague can work, after his son goes to sleep,” said Buber. “So it was really a hard time for us to go through this winter.”
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Buber said she’s fortunate, since her position and employer allow her flexibility to work from home. She and her husband take turns watching their boys if they’re ill or school is closed. It’s a scenario familiar to many workers, as the pandemic has led many caregivers to leave their jobs and schools and day-care centers shut down.  

The cost of care for the economy 

Sinem Buber and her husband can work from home and trade off child care duties when schools are closed.
Andy Tenke, CNBC

Companies across the U.S. are dealing with both a shortage of workers and a shortage of child care. A recent study by Ready Nation found that difficulty finding care for infants and toddlers costs $122 billion in lost earnings, productivity and revenue each year — more than double what it was five years ago. An analysis by the Boston Consulting Group forecast that the U.S. will lose about $290 billion a year in gross domestic product, or GDP, in 2030 and beyond if the number of paid caregivers doesn’t increase and employees leave the workforce for care duties. 
Two-thirds of OneMain Financial’s 9,200 employees are female. The personal lending company has workers in 44 states in corporate offices, operations centers and branches.

“We had pretty high attrition,” said Linda Martinez, a district manager for OneMain. “I feel like all companies did a couple years ago, and over the last 12 months, I feel like we’ve really gotten a handle on it.”

Addressing employees’ caregiving needs 

Heather McHale at home with her daughter.
Tara McCurrie, CNBC

The company worked to address the different needs of its workforce by adding new flexibility and care benefits. Branch employees were in the office, facing customers, throughout the pandemic, while many central operations and corporate office workers had hybrid options.
“What became apparent really early on is what we offered pre-pandemic wasn’t going to cut it moving forward,” said Heather McHale, chief human resources officer for OneMain and a member of the CNBC Workforce Executive Council. 
As a mother of three, including a daughter with special needs, McHale understands the situation personally, as well. OneMain now offers 24/7 access to care specialists, provides referrals to screened caregivers through Care.com and subsidizes up to $125 per day for seven days of backup care.

With so many children falling behind in school over the past couple of years, the company also now offers access for up to five hours a month of tutoring for K-12 students.  
“We want to meet our employees where they are; we want to give them the access to the care that they need,” McHale said. 
The Employee Benefit Research Institute found 61% of companies currently offer flexible work arrangements. While less than a quarter of firms now offer child-care referrals and subsidies, that number is expected to jump to half within the next two years.

Government urges industries to do more 

Linda Martinez at a OneMain Financial branch in Seacaucus, New Jersey.
Mark Aster, CNBC

In an effort to push employers to do more, the U.S. Department of Commerce is encouraging the semiconductor industry to offer more affordable care options for workers by requiring companies that are seeking more than $150 million in government funding for semiconductor facilities to submit workforce development plans for the workers who will build and operate their facilities.
The move is needed to help increase women’s participation in the labor force, the department said. That’s down to the fact that if women participated at the same rate that men do, there would be more than 10 million additional workers. 
“If you want to out-innovate the rest of the world, you’d better have all of our best minds, including women, working on these problems,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Monday on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” “It won’t happen without investments in child care.”
Join “Women & Wealth,” a CNBC Your Money event, on April 11 as we explore ways women can increase their income, save for the future and make the most out of current opportunities. Register at cnbcevents.com for this virtual event. 

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Total credit card debt reached a record $930.6 billion by the end of last year, according to the latest credit report from TransUnion.
As average balances tick higher, households’ finances are near their “breaking point,” a separate study by WalletHub found.

‘Increase in delinquencies is something to watch’

Delinquencies are already on the rise, TransUnion found. A delinquency is a payment that’s 60 days or more overdue.

“The increase in delinquencies is something to watch,” said Michele Raneri, vice president of U.S. research and consulting at TransUnion. As long as unemployment stays down, households are better able to pay their bills, she noted. “If unemployment goes up, and we see a spike in delinquencies, then that indicates a longer-term problem.”
For now, job openings still far outnumber available workers, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s recent Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.

Credit cards are one of the most expensive ways to borrow money. Currently, annual percentage rates, or APRs, are around 20%, an all-time high.
If the Federal Reserve announces a half-point increase in its benchmark interest rate at the March meeting, those APRs will climb even higher. That will cost credit card borrowers an extra $3.4 billion in interest charges over the next 12 months, WalletHub calculated.

How to tackle credit card debt

“Something has to give,” Gonzalez said. It’s time to rein in spending, pay off debt and avoid any new debt, she added.
“Cardholders do have options, though,” said Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree. Zero percent balance transfer credit card offers are even more plentiful than they were a year ago and remain one of the best weapons Americans have in the battle against credit card debt, he said.
Borrowers may also be able to refinance into a lower-interest personal loan. Those rates have climbed recently, as well, but at 10%, on average, are still well below what you currently have on your credit card, according to Schulz.

Otherwise, go back to the basics, advised Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at Bankrate.
“Take on a side hustle, sell stuff you don’t need, cut your expenses,” he said. “A dollar saved is a dollar earned, and every dollar of credit card debt that you pay down has an average guaranteed tax-free return of about 20%.”
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Several large companies have announced significant job cuts in recent months: Google, Microsoft, Amazon and other tech companies collectively laid off more than 70,000 employees in the last year and there are no signs of that trend slowing down.
Given current economic conditions and a potential looming recession, experts say more layoffs are imminent, if not expected. But regardless of your age, job, industry and other personal circumstances, there are things you can do at work to prevent yourself from being the next person to receive a pink slip.

Career expert Suzy Welch has tips for employees who want to do everything they can to avoid being laid off from their job.
Watch this video to learn what you can do.

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